Assignment 3: Project Paper – Comparative Essay

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Can you see anything?” “Yes, wonderful things!” Eng-lish archeologist Howard Carter was peering into a chamber of a tomb that had been sealed for over 3,000 years. On November 26, 1922, he had pried loose a stone from the wall and inserted a candle through the hole. “At first I could see nothing,” he later wrote, “… but pres- ently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange ani- mals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon [Carter’s financial supporter] … inquired … ‘Can you see anything?’ It was all I could do to get out the words ‘Yes, wonderful things.’”

The tomb was that of Tutankhamun, and among the most spectacular of the “wonderful things” Carter and Car- narvon would find inside was a coffin consisting of three separate coffins placed one inside the other. These were in turn encased in a quartzite sarcophagus, a rectangular stone coffin that was encased in four gilded, boxlike wooden shrines, also nestled one inside the other. Inside the inner- most coffin, itself made of solid gold, a gold funerary mask had been placed over the upper body of the young king’s

mummified body (Fig. 3.1). As news of Carter’s discovery leaked out, the world press could hardly contain its enthu- siasm. “This has been, perhaps, the most extraordinary day in the whole history of Egyptian excavation,” The Times of London wired The New York Times on February 18, 1922, the day that the sealed door to the burial chamber was finally opened. “Whatever one may have guessed or imag- ined of the secret of Tut-ankh-Amen’s tomb, they [sic] surely cannot have dreamed the truth that is now revealed. The entrance today was made into the sealed chamber of the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen, and yet another door opened beyond that. No eyes have seen the King, but to practical certainty we know that he lies there close at hand in all his original state, undisturbed.” It would be another year until the quartzite lid to Tutankhamun’s coffin, weighing nearly 1.25 tons, was hoisted off, and yet another nine months before the inner coffins were removed to reveal the king’s body. Carter’s discovery revealed the wealth that defined the Egyptian kingship, as well as the elaborate rituals sur- rounding the burial of the king himself.

The Egyptian kingship was deeply connected to the life- blood and heart of Egyptian culture, the Nile River. Like

The Stability of Ancient Egypt Flood and Sun3

THINKING AHEAD

3.1 Describe how the idea of cyclical return shaped Egyptian civilization.

3.2 Analyze how religious beliefs are reflected in the funerary art and architecture of the Old Kingdom.

3.3 Compare and contrast Middle Kingdom art and literature to that of the Old Kingdom.

3.4 Characterize New Kingdom worship of Amun and contrast it to the major transformation of Egyptian tradition under the rule of Akhenaten.

3.5 Discuss Egypt’s relations with its African neighbors to the south and with the Mediterranean powers to the north during the Late Period.

Fig. 3.1 Funerary mask of Tutankhamun. Dynasty 18, ca. 1327 bce. Gold inlaid with glass and semiprecious stones, height 211⁄4”. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. So many items of extraordinary value were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb—furniture, perfumes, chariots, weapons, jewelry, clothing, utensils, cups, and on and on—that it took Carter ten years to empty it and inventory its contents.

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68 PART ONE The Ancient World and the Classical Past

the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, the Nile could be said to have made Egypt possible. The river begins in central eastern Africa, one tributary in the mountains of Ethiopia and another at Lake Victoria in Uganda, from which it flows north for nearly 4,000 miles. Egyptian civ- ilization developed along the last 750 miles of the river’s banks, extending from the granite cliffs at Aswan, north to the Mediterranean Sea (see Map 3.1).

Nearly every year, torrential rains caused the river to rise dramatically. Most years, from July to November, the Egyptians could count on the Nile flooding their land. When the river receded, deep deposits of fertile silt cov- ered the valley floor. Fields would then be tilled, and crops planted and tended. If the flooding was either too great or too minor, especially over a period of years, famine could result. The cycle of flood and sun made Egypt one of the most productive cultures in the ancient world and one of the most stable. For 3,000 years, from 3100 bce

until the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra by the Roman general Octavian in 31 bce, Egypt’s institutions and culture remained remarkably unchanged. Its stability con- trasted sharply with the conflicts and shifts in power that occurred in Mesopotamia. The constancy and achieve- ments of Egypt’s culture are the subject of this chapter.

THE NILE AND ITS CULTURE

How does the idea of cyclical return inform Egyptian culture?

As a result of the Nile’s annual floods, Egypt called itself Kemet, meaning “Black Land.” In Upper Egypt, from Aswan to the Delta, the black, fertile deposits of the river covered an extremely narrow strip of land. Surrounding the river’s alluvial plain was the “Red Land,” the desert

100 miles

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M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a

N i l e D e l t a

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Muqaffam Hills

R e d

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Cairo

Giza

Great Pyramids

Giza

Memphis

Abydos

Thebes Luxor Karnak

Deir el-Bahri

Akhetaten (Tell el-Amarna)

Aswan

Hierakonpolis

Valley of the Kings

Saqqara

Rosetta

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Memphis

Archeological site

Modern town or city

ISRAEL

JORDAN

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Lake Nasser

Map 3.1 Nile River basin with archeological sites in relation to present-day Cairo. The broad expanse of the Lower Nile Delta was crisscrossed by canals, allowing for easy transport of produce and supplies.

See Andy Goldsworthy, Sandwork, Sand Sculpture, Time

Machine, installation at the British Museum, 1994, at

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The CONTINUING PRESENCE of the PAST

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CHAPTER 3 The Stability of Ancient Egypt 69

Fig. 3.2 Nebamun Hunting Birds, from the tomb of Nebamun, Thebes. Dynasty 18, ca. 1400 bce. Fresco on dry plaster, height approx. 2'8". © The Trustees of the British Museum. The fish and the birds, and the cat, are completely realistic, but this is not a realistic scene. It is a conventional representation of the deceased, in this case Nebamun, spearing fish or hunting fowl, almost obligatory for the decoration of a tomb. The pigments were applied directly to a dry wall, a technique that has come to be known as fresco secco, dry fresco. Such paintings are extremely fragile and susceptible to moisture damage, but Egypt’s arid climate has preserved them.

environment that could not support life, but where rich deposits of minerals and stone could be mined and quar- ried. Lower Egypt consists of the Delta itself, which today begins some 13 miles north of Giza, the site of the largest pyramids, across the river from what is present-day Cairo. But in ancient times, it began 18 miles south of Giza, near the city of Memphis.

In this land of plenty, great farms flourished, and wildlife abounded in the marshes. In fact, the Egyptians linked the marsh to the creation of the world and represented it that way in the famous hunting scene that decorates the tomb of Nebamun at Thebes (Fig. 3.2). Nebamun is about to hurl a snake-shaped throwing stick into a flock of birds as his wife and daughter look on. The painting is a sort of visual pun, referring directly to sexual procreation. The verb “to launch a throwing stick” also means “to ejaculate,” and the word for “throwing stick” itself, to “create.” The hieroglyphs written between Nebamun and his wife translate as “enjoy- ing oneself, viewing the beautiful, … at the place of con- stant renewal of life.”

Scholars divide Egyptian history into three main periods of achievement. Almost all of the conventions of Egyp- tian art were established during the first period, the Old

Kingdom. During the Middle Kingdom, the “classical” literary language that would survive through the remainder of Egyptian history was first produced. The New Kingdom was a period of prosperity that saw a renewed interest in art and architecture. During each of these periods, successive dynasties—or royal houses—brought peace and stability to the country. Between them were “Intermediate Periods” of relative instability (see Context, page 70).

Egypt’s continuous cultural tradition—lasting over 3,000 years—is history’s clearest example of how peace and pros- perity go hand in hand with cultural stability. As opposed to the warring cultures of Mesopotamia, where city-state vied with city-state and empire with successive empire, Egyptian culture was predicated on unity. It was a theoc- racy, a state ruled by a god or by the god’s representative —in this case a king (and very occasionally a queen), who ruled as the living representative of the sun god, Re. Egypt’s government was indistinguishable from its religion, and its religion manifested itself in nature, in the flow of the Nile, the heat of the sun, and in the journey of the sun through the day and night and through the seasons. In the last judg- ment of the soul after death, Egyptians believed that the heart was weighed to determine whether it was “found

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70 PART ONE The Ancient World and the Classical Past

true by trial of the Great Balance.” Balance in all things— in nature, in social life, in art, and in rule—this was the constant aim of the individual, the state, and, Egyptians believed, the gods.

Whereas in Mesopotamia the flood was largely a destruc- tive force (recall the flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh; see Chapter 2), in Egypt it had a more complex meaning. It could, indeed, be destructive, sometimes rising so high that great devastation resulted. But without it, the Egyptians knew, their culture could not endure. So, in Egyptian art and culture, a more complex way of thinking about nature, and about life itself, developed. Every aspect of Egyptian life is countered by an opposite and equal force, which contradicts and negates it, and every act of negation gives rise to its opposite again. As a result, events are cyclical, as abundance is born of devastation and devastation closely follows abundance. Likewise, just as the floods brought the Nile Valley back to life each year, the Egyptians believed that rebirth necessarily followed death. So their religion, which played a large part in their lives, reflected the cycle of the river itself.

Egyptian Religion: Cyclical Harmony The religion of ancient Egypt, like that of Mesopotamia, was polytheistic, consisting of many gods and goddesses who

were associated with natural forces and realms (see Context, page 71). When represented, gods and goddesses have human bodies and human or animal heads, and wear crowns or other headgear that identifies them by their attributes. The religion reflected an ordered universe in which the stars and planets, the various gods, and basic human activi- ties were thought to be part of a grand and harmonious design. A person who did not disrupt this harmony did not fear death because his or her spirit would live on forever.

At the heart of this religion were creation stories that explained how the gods and the world came into being. Chief among the Egyptian gods was Re, god of the sun. According to these stories, at the beginning of time, the Nile created a great mound of silt, out of which Re was born. It was understood that Re had a close personal rela- tionship with the king, who was considered the son of Re. But the king could also identify closely with other gods. The king was simultaneously believed to be the personifi- cation of the sky god, Horus, and was identified with dei- ties associated with places like Thebes or Memphis when his power resided in those cities. Though not a full-fledged god, the king was netjer nefer, literally, a “junior god.” That made him the representative of the people to the gods, whom he contacted through statues of divine beings placed in all temples. Through these statues, Egyptians believed, the gods manifested themselves on earth. Not only did the

5500–2972 bce Predynastic Period No formal dynasties Reign of Narmer and unification of Upper and Lower Egypt

2972–2647 bce Early Dynastic Period Dynasties 1–2 A unified Egypt ruled from Memphis

2647–2124 bce Old Kingdom Dynasties 3–8 The stepped pyramid at Saqqara in Dynasty 3; Pyramids at Giza in Dynasty 4

2124–2040 bce First Intermediate Period Dynasties 9–10 Egypt divided between a Northern power center at Hierakon- polis and a Southern one at Thebes

2040–1648 bce Middle Kingdom Dynasties 11–16 Reunification of Upper and Lower Egypt

1648–1540 bce Second Intermediate Period Dynasty 17 Syro-Palestinian invaders, the Hyksos, hold Lower Egypt and much of Upper Egypt until the Thebans defeat them

1540–1069 bce New Kingdom Dynasties 18–20 Reunification of Egypt; an extended period of prosperity and artistic excellence

1069–715 bce Third Intermediate Period Dynasties 21–24 More political volatility

The dates of the periods of Egyptian history, as well as the kingships within them, should be regarded as approximate. Each king numbered his own regnal years, and insufficient informa- tion about the reign of each king results in dates that sometimes

vary, especially in the earlier periods, by as much as 100 years. Although there is general consensus on the duration of most individual reigns and dynasties, there is none concerning start- ing and ending points.

715–332 bce Late Period Dynasties 25–31 Foreign invasions, beginning with the Kushites from the south and ending with Alexander the Great from the north

CONTEXT Major Periods of Ancient Egyptian History

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orderly functioning of social and political events depend upon the king’s successful communication with the gods, but so did events of nature—the ebb and flow of the river chief among them.

Like the king, all the other Egyptian gods descend from Re, as if part of a family. As we have said, many can be traced back to local deities of predynastic times who later assumed greater significance at a given place—at Thebes, for instance, the trinity of Osiris, Horus, and Isis gained a special signifi- cance. Osiris, ruler of the underworld and god of the dead, was at first a local deity in the eastern Delta. According to myth, he was murdered by his wicked brother Seth, god of storms and violence, who chopped his brother into pieces and threw them into the Nile. But Osiris’s wife and sister, Isis, the goddess of fertility, collected what parts she could find, put the god back together, and restored him to life. Osiris was therefore identified with the Nile itself, with its annual flood and renewal. The child of Osiris and Isis was Horus, who defeated Seth and became the mythical first king of Egypt. The actual, living king was considered the earthly manifestation of Horus (as well as the son of Re). When the living king died, he became Osiris, and his son took the throne as Horus. Thus, even the kingship was cyclical.

At Memphis, the triad of Ptah, Sakhmet, and Nefertum held sway. A stone inscription at Memphis describes Ptah as the supreme artisan and creator of all things (Reading 3.1):

A Horus, son of Osiris, a sky god closely linked with the king; pictured as a hawk, or hawk-headed man.

B Seth, enemy of Horus and Osiris, god of storms; pictured as an unidentifiable creature (some believe a wild donkey), or a man with this animal’s head.

C Thoth, a moon deity and god of writing, counting, and wisdom; pictured as an ibis, or ibis-headed man, often with a crescent moon on his head.

D Khnum, originally the god of the source of the Nile, pictured as a bull who shaped men out of clay on his potter’s wheel; later, god of pottery.

E Hathor, goddess of love, birth, and death; pictured as a woman with cow horns and a sun disk on her head.

F Sobek, the crocodile god, associated both with the fertility of the Nile, and, because of the ferocity of the crocodile, with the army’s power and strength.

G Re, the sun god in his many forms; pictured as a hawk- headed man with a sun disk on his head.

E F GA B C DD

earliest instances of a system of religious and philosophic thought that survives even in contemporary thought. Life and death, flood and sun, even desert and oasis were part of a larger harmony of nature, one that was predictable in both the diurnal cycle of day and night but also in its sea- sonal patterns of repetition. A good deity like Osiris was necessarily balanced by a bad deity like Seth. The fertile Nile Valley was balanced by the harsh desert surrounding it. The narrow reaches of the upper Nile were balanced by the broad marshes of the Delta. All things were predicated upon the return of their opposite, which negates them, but which in the process completes the whole and regenerates the cycle of being and becoming once again.

Pictorial Formulas in Egyptian Art This sense of duality, of opposites, informs even the ear- liest Egyptian artifacts, such as the Palette of Narmer, found at Hierakonpolis, in Upper Egypt (see Closer Look, pages 72–73). A palette is technically an everyday object used for grinding pigments and making body- or eye-paint.

READING 3.1

from Memphis, “This It Is Said of Ptah” (ca. 2300 bce)

This it is said of Ptah: “He who made all and created the gods.” And he is Ta-tenen, who gave birth to the gods, and from whom every thing came forth, foods, provisions, divine offerings, all good things. This it is recognized and understood that he is the mightiest of the gods. Thus Ptah was satisfied after he had made all things and all divine words.

He gave birth to the gods, He made the towns, He established the nomes [provinces], He placed the gods in their shrines, He settled their offerings, He established their shrines, He made their bodies according to their wishes, Thus the gods entered into their bodies, Of every wood, every stone, every clay, Every thing that grows upon him In which they came to be.

Sekhmet is Ptah’s female companion. Depicted as a lion- ess, she served as protector of the king in peace and war. She is also the mother of Nefertum, a beautiful young man whose name means “perfection,” small statues of whom were often carried by Egyptians for good luck.

The cyclical movement through opposing forces, embod- ied in stories such as that of Osiris and Isis, is one of the

CONTEXT Some of the Principal Egyptian Gods

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72 PART ONE The Ancient World and the Classical Past

CLOSER LOOK

The Egyptians created a style of writing very different from that of their northern neighbors in Mesopota-mia. It consists of hieroglyphs, “writing of the gods,” from the Greek hieros, meaning “holy,” and gluphein, “to engrave.” Although the number of signs increased over the centuries from about 700 to nearly 5,000, the system of sym- bolic communication underwent almost no major changes from its advent in the fourth millennium bce until 395 ce, when Egypt was conquered by the Roman Empire. It con- sists of three kinds of signs: pictograms, or stylized drawings that represent objects or beings, which can be combined to express ideas; phonograms, which are pictograms used to represent sounds; and determinatives, signs used to indicate which category of objects or beings is in question. The Pal- ette of Narmer is an early example of the then-developing

hieroglyphic style. It consists largely of pictograms, though in the top center of each side, Narmer’s name is represented as a phonogram.

The circle formed by the two elongated lions’ necks intertwined on the recto, or front, of the palette is a bowl for mixing pigments. The palette celebrates the defeat by Narmer (r. ca. 3000 bce) of his enemies and his unification of both Upper and Lower Egypt, which before this time had been at odds. So on the recto side, Narmer wears the red cobra crown of Lower Egypt, associated with the cobra god- dess Wadjit of Buto in the Delta, and on the verso, or back, he wears the white crown of Upper Egypt, associated with Wadjit’s sister, the vulture goddess Nekhbet of Nekheb in southern Egypt—representing his ability (and duty) to har- monize antagonistic elements.

Flanking the top of each side of the palette is a goddess wearing cow’s horns; such headdresses represent the divine attributes of the figure. Later, Hathor, the Sky Mother, a goddess embodying all female qualities, would possess these attributes, but this early image probably represents the cow-goddess, Bat.

The mace was the chief weapon used by the king to strike down enemies, and the scene here is emblematic of his power.

As on the other side of the palette, the king is here accompanied by his sandal-bearer, who stands on his own ground-line. He carries the king’s sandals to indicate that the king, who is barefoot, stands on sacred ground, and that his acts are themselves sacred.

Narmer, wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt, strikes down his enemy, probably the embodiment of Lower Egypt itself, especially since he is, in size, comparable to Narmer himself, suggesting he is likewise a leader.

The hawk is a symbolic representation of the god Horus. The king was regarded as the earthly embodiment of Horus. Here, Horus has a human hand with which he holds a rope tied to a symbolic representation of a conquered land and people.

A human head grows from the same ground as six papyrus blossoms, possibly the symbol of Lower Egypt.

Palette of Narmer, verso side, from Hierakonpolis. Dynasty 1, ca. 3000 bce. Schist, height 251⁄4". Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

Two more figures represent the defeated enemy. Behind the one on the left is a small aerial view of a fortified city; behind the one on the right, a gazelle trap. Perhaps together they represent Narmer’s victory over both city and countryside.

This hieroglyph identifies the man that Narmer is about to kill, a name otherwise unknown.

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CHAPTER 3 The Stability of Ancient Egypt 73

Reading the Palette of Narmer

The Palette of Narmer was not meant for actual use. Rather, it is a votive, or ritual object, a gift to a god or god- dess that was placed in a temple to ensure that the king, or perhaps some temple official, would have access to a palette throughout eternity. It may or may not register actual his- torical events, although, in fact, Egypt marks its beginnings with the unification of its Upper and Lower territories. Sub- sequent kings, at any rate, presented themselves in almost identical terms, as triumphing over their enemies, mace in hand, even though they had played no role in a similar

military campaign. It is even possible that by the time of Narmer such conventions were already in place, although our system of numbering Egyptian dynasties begins with him. Whether the scene depicted is symbolic, the pictorial formulas, or conventions of representation, that Egyptian culture used for the rest of its history are fully developed in this piece.

We are able to identify Narmer not only from his hieroglyphic name, next to him, but by his relative size. As befits the king, he is larger than anyone else.

Similarly positioned on the other side of the palette and identified by the accompanying hieroglyph, this is the king’s sandal-bearer.

The defeated dead lie in two rows, their decapitated heads between their feet. Narmer in sacred procession reviews them, while above them, a tiny Horus (the hawk) looks on.

This is the mixing bowl of the palette. The lions may represent competing forces brought under control by the king. Each is held in check by one of the king’s lion-tamers, figures that in some sense represent state authority.

This is a representation of a fortified city as seen both from above, as a floor plan, and from the front, as a facade. It is meant to represent the actual site of Narmer’s victory.

Palette of Narmer, recto side, from Hierakonpolis. Dynasty 1, ca. 3000 bce. Schist, height 251⁄4". Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

The bull here strikes down his victim and is another representation of the king’s might and power. Note that in the depictions of Narmer striking down his victim and in procession, a bull’s tail hangs from his waistband.

These are two instances of the hieroglyphic sign for Narmer, consisting of a catfish above a chisel. Each individual hieroglyph is a pictogram but is utilized here for its phonetic sound. Nar is the word for “catfish,” and mer is the word for “chisel” (or, perhaps, “sickly”)—hence “Narmer.” In the lower instance, the hieroglyph identifies the king. In the instance at the top, the king’s name is inside a depiction of his palace seen simultaneously from above, as a ground plan, and from the front, as a facade. This device, called a serekh, is traditionally used to hold the king’s name.

Something to Think About … Do you see any connection between the Egyptian hieroglyphs, as seen on the Palette of Narmer, and Sumerian cuneiform writing?

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74 PART ONE The Ancient World and the Classical Past

The scenes on the Palette of Narmer are in low relief. Like those on the Royal Standard of Ur (see Fig. 2.8 in Chap- ter 2), they are arranged in registers that provide a ground line upon which the figures stand (the two lion-tamers are an exception). The figures typically face to the right, though often, as is the case here, the design is balanced left and right. The artist represents the various parts of the human figure in what the Egyptians thought was their most characteristic view. So, the face, arms, legs, and feet are in profile, with the left foot advanced in front of the right. The eye and shoulders are in front view. The mouth, navel and hips, and knees are in three-quarter view. As a result, the viewer sees each person in a composite view, the integration of multiple perspectives into a single unified image.

In Egyptian art, not only the figures but the scenes themselves unite two contradictory points of view into a single image. In the Palette of Narmer, the king approaches his dead enemies from the side, but they lie beheaded on the ground before him as seen from above. Egyptian art often represents architecture in the same terms. At the top middle of the Palette of Narmer, the external facade of the palace is depicted simultaneously from above, in a kind of ground plan, with its niched facade at the bottom. The design contains Narmer’s Horus-name, consisting of a catfish and a chisel. The hieroglyphic signs for Narmer could not be interpreted until the Rosetta Stone was dis- covered (see Context, page 77), but we are still not sure whether it is to be read “Narmer,” which are the later pho- netic values of the signs. In fact, later meanings of these signs suggest that it might be read “sick catfish,” which seems rather unlikely.

THE OLD KINGDOM

In what ways do the art and architecture of the Old Kingdom reflect religious beliefs?

Although the Palette of Narmer probably commemorates an event in life, as a votive object it is devoted, like most surviving Egyptian art and architecture, to burial and the afterlife. The Egyptians buried their dead on the west side of the Nile, where the sun sets, a symbolic reference to death and rebirth, since the sun always rises again. The pyramid was the first monumental royal tomb. A massive physical manifestation of the reality of the king’s death, it was also the symbolic embodiment of his eternal life. It would endure for generations as, Egyptians believed, would the king’s ka. This idea is comparable to an endur- ing “soul” or “life force,” a concept found in many other religions. The ka, which all persons possessed, was created at the same time as the physical body, itself essential for the person’s existence since it provided the ka with an indi- vidual identity in which its personality, or ba, might also manifest itself. This meant that it was necessary to pre- serve the body after death so that the ba and ka might still

recognize it for eternity. All the necessities of the afterlife, from food to furniture to entertainment, were placed in the pyramid’s burial chamber with the king’s body.

Funerary temples and grounds surrounded the temple so that priests could continuously replenish these offerings in order to guarantee the king’s continued existence after death. Pyramids are the massive architectural product of what is known as the Old Kingdom, which dates from 2647 to 2124 bce, a period of unprecedented achievement that solidified the accomplishments of the Early Dynastic Period initiated by Narmer.

The Stepped Pyramid at Saqqara The first great pyramid was the stepped pyramid of Djoser (r. ca. 2628–2609 bce), who ruled at Saqqara, just south of present-day Cairo (Figs. 3.3, 3.4). It predates the ziggu- rat at Ur, the great temple of ancient Sumer in Mesopota- mia (see Fig. 2.1 in Chapter 2), by nearly 500 years and is therefore the first great monumental architecture in human history to have survived. It consists of a series of stepped platforms rising to a height of 197 feet, but since it sits on an elevated piece of ground, it appears even taller to the approaching visitor.

Above ground level, the pyramid of Djoser contains no rooms or cavities. The king’s body rested below the first

Fig. 3.3 Possibly the work of Imhotep, Stepped pyramid and funerary complex of Djoser, Saqqara. Dynasty 3, 2610 bce. Limestone, height of pyramid 197'. The base of this enormous structure measures 460 feet east to west, and 388 feet north to south. It is the earliest known use of cut stone for architecture. The architect, Imhotep, was Djoser’s prime minister. He is the first architect in history known to us by name.

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CHAPTER 3 The Stability of Ancient Egypt 75

level of the pyramid, in a chamber some 90 feet beneath the original mastaba—a trapezoidal tomb structure that derives its name from the Arabic word for “bench.” Such mastabas predate Djoser’s pyramid but continued to be used for the burial of figures of lesser importance for cen- turies. The pyramid is situated in a much larger, ritual area than this earlier form of tomb. The total enclosure of this enormous complex originally measured 1,800 by 900 feet—or six football fields by three.

The idea of stacking six increasingly smaller mastabas on top of one another to create a monumental symbol of the everlasting spirit of the king was apparently the brainchild

of Imhotep, Djoser’s chief architect. He is the first artist or architect whose name survives, and his reputation contin- ued to grow for centuries after his death. Graffiti written on the side of the pyramid a thousand years after Djoser’s death praises Imhotep for a building that seems “as if heaven were within it” and as though “heaven rained myrrh and dripped incense upon it.”

Three Pyramids at Giza From Djoser’s time forward, the tomb of the king was dra- matically distinguished from those of other members of the royal family. But within 50 years, the stepped form of Djoser’s pyramid was abandoned and replaced with a smooth-sided, starkly geometric monument consisting of four triangular sides slanting upward from a square base to an apex directly over the center of the square. The most magnificent examples of this form are found at Giza, just north of Djoser’s tomb at Saqqara.

Khufu’s Pyramid Of the three pyramids at Giza, Khufu’s (r. 2549–2526 bce) is both the earliest and the grandest one (Fig. 3.5), measuring 479 feet high on a base measuring 755 feet square, built from an estimated 2.3 million stone blocks, weighing between 2 and 5 tons each. Historians speculate that the stones were dragged up inclined ramps made of compacted rubble bonded and made slippery with a kind of lime-clay, called tafl, although they may well have been raised from tier to tier up the side of the pyramid by means of levers not unlike those used by the workers at

serdab

mastaba

shaft

burial chamber

chapel false door

Fig. 3.4 Section and restored view of a typical mastaba tomb. The mastaba is a brick or stone structure with a sloping (or “battered”) wall. The serdab is a chamber for a statue of the deceased.

Fig. 3.5 Cutaway elevation of the pyramid of Khufu.

so-called queen’s chamber

airshaft

airshaft

king’s chamber grand gallery

entrance

relieving chambers

thieves’ tunnels false tomb chamber

Watch an architectural simulation about the pyramid on MyArtsLab

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Fig. 3.7 Plan of the pyramids at Giza. Surrounding the northernmost pyramid of Khufu were mastaba fields, a royal cemetery in which were buried various officials, priests, and nobility of the king’s court. When a king died in the royal palaces on the east bank of the Nile, his body was transported across the river to a valley temple on the west bank. After a ritual ceremony, it was carried up the causeway to the temple in front of the pyramid where another ritual was performed—the “opening of the mouth,” in which priests “fed” the deceased’s ka a special meal. The body was then sealed in a relatively small tomb deep in the heart of the pyramid (see Fig. 3.5).

Pyramid of Khufu

Pyramid of Khafre

subsidiary pyramid

Mortuary Temple

causeway

causeway

enclosure walls

Pyramid of Menkaure

Mortuary Temple

Pyramids of Queens

Valley Temple

300 m0

0 1000 ft

Valley Temple

Sphinx Temple

Great Sphinx

western mastaba

eld

boat pits causeway

to the Nile

eastern mastaba

eld

Pyramids of Queens

boat pits

N

Fig. 3.6 The pyramids of Menkaure (ca. 2470 bce), Khafre (ca. 2500 bce), and Khufu (ca. 2530 bce). Giza was an elaborate complex of ritual temples, shrines, and ceremonial causeways, all leading to one or another of the three giant pyramids.

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Until the nineteenth century, Egyptian hieroglyphs remained untranslated. The key to finally deciphering them was the Rosetta Stone, a discovery made by Napoleon’s army in 1799 and named for the town in the Egyptian Delta near where it was found. On the stone was a decree issued in 196 bce by the priests of Memphis honoring the ruler Ptolemy V, recorded in two different languages and three sepa- rate scripts—Greek, demotic Egyptian (an informal and stylized form of writing used by the people—the “demos”), which first came into use in the eighth cen- tury bce, and finally hieroglyphs, the high formal writ- ing used exclusively by priests and scribes.

The stone was almost immediately understood to be a key to deciphering hieroglyphs, but its sig- nificance was not fully realized until years later. French linguist Jean-François Champollion began an intensive study of the stone in 1808 and concluded that the pictures and symbols in hieroglyphic writ- ing stood for specific phonetic sounds, or, as he described it, constituted a “phonetic alphabet.” A key to unlocking the code was a cartouche, an ornamental and symbolic frame reserved for the names of rulers. Champollion noticed that the car- touche surrounded a name, and deciphered the phonetic symbols for P, O, L, and T—four of the letters in the name Ptolemy. In another cartouche, he found the symbols for Cleopatra’s name. By 1822, he had worked out enough of the writing system and the language to translate two texts, but Egyptologists have continued to improve and refine our understanding of the language to this day.

Stonehenge (see Closer Look, Chapter 1, pages 16–17). Whatever feats of engineering accomplished the trans- port of so much stone into such an enormous configura- tion, what still dazzles us is this pyramid’s astronomical and mathematical precision. It is perfectly oriented to the four cardinal points of the compass (as are the other two pyra- mids, which were positioned later, probably using Khufu’s alignment as a reference point).

The two airshafts that run from the two top chambers seem oriented to specific stars, including Sirius, the bright- est star in the night sky. The relationship between the various sides of the structure suggests that the Egyptians understood and made use of the mathematical value π (pi). All of this has led to considerable theorizing about “the secret of the pyramids,” the other two of which are Khafre’s (r. 2518–2493 bce), and Menkaure’s (r. 2488–2460 bce)

(Figs. 3.6 and 3.7). Most convincing is the theory that the pyramid’s sides represented the descending rays of the sun god Re, whose cult was particularly powerful at the time the pyramids were built. Because they were covered in a polished limestone sheath (the only remnant survives atop Khafre’s pyramid), the sun must have glistened off them. And one convincing text survives: “I have trodden these rays as ramps under my feet where I mount up to my mother Uraeus on the brow of Re.” Whatever their symbolic sig- nificance, the pyramids of Giza are above all extraordinary feats of human construction.

The Great Sphinx In front of the pyramid dedicated to Khufu’s son Khafre, and near the head of the causeway leading from the valley temple to the mortuary temple (see Fig. 3.7), is the largest statue ever made in the ancient

The Rosetta Stone. 196 bce. Basalt, 461⁄2" × 301⁄8". © The Trustees of the British Museum. The top, parts of which have been lost, contains the formal hieroglyphs; the middle, demotic Egyptian; and the bottom, the Greek text of the decree.

CONTEXT The Rosetta Stone

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Fig. 3.8 The Great Sphinx (with the pyramid of Khafre in the background), Giza. Dynasty 4, ca. 2500 bce. Limestone, height approx. 65'. Over the years, legend has had it that the artillery forces of Napoleon’s invading army shot off the Sphinx’s nose and ears. In truth, a fanatical Muslim cleric from Cairo severely damaged the statue in an attack in 1378.

Fig. 3.9 Seated statue of Khafre, from the valley temple of Khafre, Giza. Dynasty 4, ca. 2500 bce. Diorite, height 66". Egyptian Museum, Cairo. On the side of Khafre’s throne, intertwining lotus and papyrus blossoms signify his rule of both Upper and Lower Egypt.

Monumental Royal Sculpture: Perfection and Eternity The Sphinx’s monumentality indicates the growing impor- tance of sculpture to the Egyptian funerary tradition. The word for sculpture in Egyptian is, in fact, the same as for giving birth, and funerary sculpture served the same pur- pose as the pyramids themselves—to preserve and guaran- tee the king’s existence after death, thereby providing a kind of rebirth. Although there are thousands of limestone and not a few sandstone funerary monuments, the materials of choice were diorite, schist, and granite, stones as dura- ble and enduring as the ka itself. These stones can also take on a high polish and, because they are not prone to frac- ture, can be finely detailed when carved. These stones were carved into three main types of male statue: (1) a seated

world, the Great Sphinx, carved out of an existing lime- stone knoll (Fig. 3.8). As in Egyptian depictions of the gods, the Sphinx is half man and half animal. But where the gods are normally depicted with an animal’s head and a human body, the Sphinx is just the opposite: a lion’s body supports the head of a king wearing the royal headcloth. The sculpture probably represents Khafre himself protect- ing the approach to his own funerary complex, and thus it requires Khafre’s physical likeness, but its combination of animal and human forms also suggests the king’s connec- tion to the gods.

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figure, looking directly ahead, his feet side by side, one hand resting flat on the knee, the other clenched in a fist; (2) a standing figure, his gaze fixed into the distance, left foot forward, both hands alongside the body with fists clenched; and (3) a figure seated on the ground with legs crossed. The first two types were used for kings as well as important officials. The third was used for royal scribes. Also popular were statue pairs of husband and wife, either seated or standing.

The statue of Khafre from his valley temple at Giza (see Fig. 3.7) is an example of the first type (Fig. 3.9). The king sits rigidly upright and frontal, wear- ing a simple kilt and the same royal headdress as the Great Sphinx outside the valley temple. His throne is formed of the bodies of two stylized lions. Behind him, as if caress- ing his head, is a hawk, a manifestation of the god Horus, extending its wings in a protective gesture. In Egyptian society, the strong care for and protect the weak; so too Horus watches over Khafre as Khafre watches over his peo- ple. Because Khafre is a king and a divinity, he is shown with a smooth, perfectly proportioned face and a flawless, well-muscled body. This idealized anatomy was used in Egyptian sculpture regardless of the actual age and body of the king portrayed, its perfection mirroring the perfection of the gods themselves. Most Egyptian statues were mono- lithic, or carved out of a single piece of stone, even those depicting more than a single figure.

The same effect is apparent in the statue of Menkaure with a woman—perhaps his queen, his mother, or even a goddess—that was also found at his valley temple at Giza (Fig. 3.10). Here, the deep space created by carving away the side of the stone to expose fully the king’s right side seems to free him from the stone. He stands with one foot ahead of the other in the second traditional pose, the conventional depiction of a standing figure. He is not walking. Both feet are planted firmly on the ground (and so his left leg is, of necessity, slightly longer than his right). His back is firmly implanted in the stone panel behind him, but he seems to have emerged farther from it than the female figure who accompanies him, as if to underscore his power and might. Although the woman is almost the same size as the man, her stride is markedly shorter than his. She embraces him, her arm reaching round his back, in a gesture that reminds us of Horus’s protective embrace of Khafre, but suggests also the simple marital affection of husband and wife. The ultimate effect of both of these sculptures—their solidity and unity, their sense of resolution—testifies finally to their purpose, which is to endure for eternity.

The Sculpture of the Everyday Idealized athletic physiques, austere dignity, and grand scale were for royalty and officials only. Lesser figures were depicted more naturally, with flabby physiques or rounded shoulders, and on a more human scale. The third traditional type of male figure in Egyptian sculpture was the royal scribe, and in one such, we can see that a soft,

Fig. 3.10 Menkaure with a Queen, probably Khamerernebty, from the valley temple of Menkaure, Giza. Dynasty 4, ca. 2460 bce. Schist, height 541⁄4". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition, 11.1738. Photograph © 2014 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Note that the woman’s close-fitting attire is nearly transparent, indicating a very fine weave of linen.

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flabby body replaces the hardened chest of a king (Fig. 3.11). But the scribe’s pose, seated cross-legged on the floor, marks him as literate and a valuable official of the king. The stone was carved out around his arms and head so that, instead of the monumental space of the king’s sculp- ture, which derives from its compactness and its attachment to the slab of stone behind it, the scribe seems to occupy real space. The scribe’s task was important: His statue would serve the king through eternity as he had served the king in life.

Statues of lesser persons were often made of less perma- nent materials, such as wood. Carved from separate pieces,

Fig. 3.12 Priest Ka-aper (also known as the “Sheikh el-Beled”), from his mastaba, Saqqara. Dynasty 5, ca. 2450 bce. Plaster and painted wood, height 3'7". Egyptian Museum, Cairo. This paunchy priest lacks the idealized physique reserved for more eminent nobility.

Fig. 3.11 Seated Scribe, from his mastaba, Saqqara. Dynasty 5, ca. 2400 bce. Painted limestone, height 21". Musée du Louvre, Paris. Scribes were the most educated of Egyptians—not only able to read and write but accomplished in arithmetic, algebra, religion, and law. Their ka statues necessarily accompanied those of their kings into the afterlife.

with the arms attached to the body at the shoulders, such statues as that of the priest Ka-aper, found in his own tomb at Saqqara, could assume a more natural pose (Fig. 3.12). The eyes, made of rock crystal, seem vital and lively. Origi- nally, the statue was covered with plaster and painted (men were usually red-brown, like the seated scribe in Fig. 3.11, and women yellow). Small statues of servants, especially those who made food, have also been found in the tombs of officials.

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Fig. 3.13 Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II, from his funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri, western Thebes. Dynasty 11, ca. 2000 bce. Painted sandstone, height 72". Egyptian Museum, Cairo. The king’s dark color here may refer to the “black land” of the Nile Valley, another symbol of the cycle of death and resurrection that is embodied in the Osiris myth.

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM AT THEBES

How do the art and architecture of the Middle Kingdom differ from those of the Old Kingdom?

The Old Kingdom collapsed for a variety of reasons— drought, a weakened kingship, greater autonomy of local administrators—all of which led to an Egypt divided between competing power centers in the North and South. After over 150 years of tension, Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II (r. 2040–1999 bce) assumed the rule of the Southern capi- tal at Thebes, defeated the Northern kings, and reunited the country. The Middle Kingdom begins with his reign.

Thebes, on the west bank of the Nile, was the pri- mary capital of the Middle Kingdom and included within its outer limits Karnak, Luxor, and other sites on the east bank (see Map 3.1). Although certain traditions remained in place from the Old Kingdom, change was beginning to occur.

Middle Kingdom Literature One of the greatest changes took place in literature. Ear- lier, most writing and literature served a sacred purpose. But, during the Middle Kingdom, writers produced stories, instructive literature, satires, poems, biography, history, and scientific writings. Much of the surviving writing is highly imaginative, including tales of encounters with the supernatural. Among the most interesting texts is The Teachings of Khety, a satiric example of instructive literature in which a scribe tries to convince his son to fol- low him into the profession. He begins by extolling the vir- tues of the scribe’s life: “I shall make you love books more than your mother, and I shall place their excellence before you. It is greater than any office. There is nothing like it on earth.” But he goes on to defend his own work by detail- ing all that is wrong with every other profession available to him:

I have seen a coppersmith at his work at the door of his fur- nace. His fingers were like the claws of the crocodile, and he stank more than fish excrement. … I shall also describe to you the bricklayer. His kidneys are painful. When he must be outside in the wind, he lays bricks without a garment. His belt is a cord for his back, a string for his buttocks. His strength has vanished through fatigue and stiffness. … The sandal maker is utterly wretched carrying his tubs of oil. His stores are provided with carcasses, and what he bites is hides.

The work provides us with a broad survey of daily life in the Middle Kingdom. It ends in a series of admonitions about how a young scribe must behave—advice that par- ents have been giving children for millennia (see Reading 3.2, page 95 for more of the text).

Middle Kingdom Sculpture Although a new brand of literature began to appear in the Middle Kingdom, sculpture remained firmly rooted in tra- dition. The only innovation in the traditional seated king funerary statue of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II is that the pose has been slightly modified (Fig. 3.13). Most notice- ably, the king crosses his arms tightly across his chest. The pose is reminiscent of a mummy, an embalmed body wrapped for burial (see Materials & Techniques, page 86). The king’s mummylike pose probably refers to the grow- ing cult of the god Osiris, discussed earlier. As early as the late Fifth Dynasty, the dead king was called “Osiris [King’s Name].” By the time of the Middle Kingdom, ordinary, non- royal people were beginning to be identi- fied with Osiris as well. Osiris, god of the underworld, overseer of the judgment of souls, is usually depicted wrapped in white linen, but unlike Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II, whose legs and hands are exposed, Osiris is usually com- pletely wrapped.

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Figs. 3.14 and 3.15 Senwosret Led by Atum to Amun-Re, from the White Chapel at Karnak, Thebes. Dynasty 12, ca. 1930 bce. Limestone relief; and grid drawing showing proportions employed. Many of the elements visible in the Palette of Narmer, which dates from over 1,000 years earlier, are still visible here. Not only are the bodies depicted in the conventional poses, but note the two figures on the right: King Senwosret wears the white crown of Upper Egypt, and the god Atum wears the double crown of both Upper and Lower Egypt. Note also that, just like Narmer, Senwosret and Atum each wear a bull’s tail draped from their waist.

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Eighteenth Dynasty sought to align themselves closely with the aims and aspirations of the Middle Kingdom. The funerary temple of Hatshepsut in western Thebes is an interesting case in point.

Temple and Tomb Architecture and Their Rituals Hatshepsut (r. ca. 1479–1457 bce) was the daughter of Thutmose I (r. ca. 1504–1492 bce) and married her half- brother Thutmose II. When her husband died, she became regent for their young son, Thutmose III, and ruled for 20 years as king (priests of Amun, in fact, declared her king). As her reign continued, sculptures of Hatshepsut increas- ingly lost many of their female characteristics until she is barely distinguishable, given family resemblances, from later sculptures of her son, Thutmose III (Fig. 3.16). Her breasts are barely visible, and she wears the false beard of

In relief carvings found in the temples of the Middle Kingdom, the traditional pose of the figure, which dates back to Narmer’s time, still survives. The figures in a Twelfth Dynasty relief from the White Chapel at Karnak are depicted with right foot forward, feet and face in profile, and the shoulders and hips frontal (Fig. 3.14). But we have learned that figures were now conceived according to a grid. Much like a piece of graph paper, a grid is a system of regu- larly spaced horizontally and vertically crossed lines. Used in the initial design process, it enables the artist to transfer a design or enlarge it easily (Fig. 3.15). In the Egyptian sys- tem, the height of the figure from the top of the forehead (where it disappears beneath the headdress) to the soles of the feet is 18 squares. The top of the knee is 6 squares high, the waist, 11. The elbows are at the twelfth square, the arm- pits at the fourteenth, and the shoulders at the sixteenth. Each square also relates to the human body as a measure, representing the equivalent of one clenched fist.

This particular relief depicts the rise of yet another god in the Middle Kingdom—Amun, or, to associate him more closely with the sun, Amun-Re. He was originally the chief god of Thebes, but as the city became more prominent, Amun became the chief deity of all of Egypt. His name would appear (sometimes as “Amen”) in many subsequent royal names—such as Amenhotep (“Amun is Satisfied”) or, most famously, Tutankhamun (“The Living Image of Amun”). In the relief from the White Chapel, Atum, the god of the city of Heliopolis, just north of Memphis, that Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II had defeated four genera- tions earlier, leads King Senwosret I (r. 1960–1916 bce) to Amun, who stands at the left on a pedestal with an erect penis, signifying fertility. Atum turns to Senwosret and holds the hieroglyph ankh, signifying life, to his nose. The king is depicted as having received the gift, since he holds it in his left hand.

The continuity and stability implied by this relief ended abruptly in 1648 bce, when a Hyksos king declared himself King of Egypt. The Hyksos were foreigners who had appar- ently lived in Egypt for some time. They made local alli- ances, introduced the horse-drawn chariot (which may well have helped them achieve their military dominance), and led Egypt into another “intermediate” period of disunity and disarray. Dissatisfaction with Hyksos rule originated, once again, in Thebes, and finally, in 1540 bce, the Theban king Ahmose defeated the last Hyksos ruler and inaugu- rated the New Kingdom.

THE NEW KINGDOM

How did Akhenaten transform the New Kingdom’s traditional worship of Amun?

The worship of Amun that developed in the Twelfth Dynasty continued though the Middle Kingdom and into the Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom, 500 years later. In fact, there is clear evidence that the rulers of the

Fig. 3.16 Kneeling statue of Hatshepsut. New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, Joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III. ca. 1473–1458 bce. Granite, paint; height 341⁄4", width 1213⁄16", diameter 201⁄4". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This is one of at least 8, perhaps 12, small kneeling statues of Hatshepsut believed to have lined the processional way of her temple at Deir el-Bahri.

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the Egyptian kings, the traditional symbol of the king’s power and majesty.

Hatshepsut’s temple, built on three levels, is modeled precisely on the two-level funerary temple of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II, next to which it stands. Hatshepsut’s tem- ple is partly freestanding and partly cut into the rock cliffs of the hill (Fig. 3.17). The first level consisted of a large open plaza backed by a long colonnade, a sequence or row of columns supporting a lintel and roof. A long ramp led up to a second court that housed shrines to Anubis (god of embalming and agent of Osiris) and Hathor (the Sky Mother, probably a reference to Hatshepsut’s gender). Another ramp led to another colonnade fronted with colos- sal royal statues, two more colonnades, a series of chapels, and behind them, cut into the cliff, a central shrine to Amun-Re.

The Great Temple of Amun at Karnak Directly across the valley from Hatshepsut’s temple, and parallel to it, is the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak. It is a product of the age in which the Egyptian king came to be known as pharaoh, from Egyptian per-aa, “great house,” meaning the palace of the king. In the same way that we refer to the presidency as “the White House,” or the government of England as “10 Downing Street,” so the Egyptians, beginning in the Eight- eenth Dynasty, came to speak of their rulers by invoking their place of residence. (The modern practice of referring to all Egyptian kings as “pharaoh,” incidentally, can prob- ably be attributed to its use in the Hebrew Bible to refer to both earlier and later Egyptian kings.)

Fig. 3.18 Hypostyle hall, Great Temple of Amun, Karnak, Thebes. Dynasty 19, ca. 1294–1212 bce. It is difficult to sense the massive scale of these columns from a photo. Dozens of people could easily stand on the top of one of them, and it takes at least eight people, holding hands, to span the circumference of a given column near its base. An average person is no taller than the base and first drum, or circular disk of stone, forming the column.

Fig. 3.17 Senenmut, Funerary temple of Hatshepsut, Deir el-Bahri, western Thebes. Dynasty 18, ca. 1460 bce. At the far left is the ramp and funerary temple of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II. Dynasty 11 (Middle Kingdom), ca. 2000 bce. Senenmut’s name is associated with the temple because he has titles that suggest he oversaw the project, and he had little images of himself carved behind doors, where they would not be seen. But he may or may not have been the actual architect.

View the Closer Look for the funerary temple of Hatshepsut on MyArtsLab

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The pharaohs engaged in massive build- ing programs during the New Kingdom, lav- ishing as much attention on their temples as their tombs. Not only was Amun a focus of worship, but so was his wife, Mut, and their son Khonsu. Although each temple is unique, all of the New Kingdom temples share a number of common architectural premises. They were fronted by a pylon, or massive gateway with sloping walls, which served to separate the disorderly world of everyday existence from the orderly world of the temple.

Behind the pylon was one or more open courtyards leading to a roofed hypostyle hall, a vast space filled with the many mas- sive columns required to hold up the stone slabs forming the roof. The columns in the hypostyle hall of the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak have flower and bud capi- tals (Figs. 3.18, 3.19). Behind the hypo- style hall was the sanctuary, in which the statue of the deity was placed. To proceed into the temple was to proceed out of the light of the outside world and into a darker and more spiritual space. The temple was therefore a metaphor for birth and creation.

Each day, priests washed the deity statue, clothed it with a clean garment, and offered it two meals of delicious food. It was the “spirit” of the food that the gods enjoyed, and after the offering, the priests themselves ate the meals. Only kings and priests were admitted to the sanctuary, but

Fig. 3.19 Reconstruction drawing of the hypostyle hall, Great Temple of Amun, Karnak. Dynasty 19, ca. 1294–1212 bce. The foreground columns have bud capitals, and the hall’s central columns are taller with flower capitals. The center columns are taller than the outer ones, to admit light into the hall through windows along the upper walls. (Note that here the first five rows of columns in the front have been omitted for clarity. There are seven rows of columns on each side of the center rows.)

bud capitals

clerestory�ower capitals

Fig. 3.20 Pylon gate of Ramses II with obelisk in the foreground, at Luxor, Thebes. Dynasty 19, ca. 1279–1212 bce. The inscriptions on the pylon celebrate Ramses II’s victory at the Battle of Qadesh over the Hittites as the two empires fought for control of Syria.

at festival times, the cult statue of the deity was removed to lead processions—perhaps across the Nile to the funerary temples of the kings or to visit other deities in their temples (Mut regularly “visited” Amun, for instance).

The Great Temple of Amun at Karnak was the largest temple in Egypt. Although the temple was begun in the Middle Kingdom period, throughout the New Kingdom period pharaohs strove to contribute to its majesty and glory by adding to it or rebuilding its parts. The pharaohs built other temples to Amun as well. Each year, in an elaborate festival, the image of Amun from Karnak would travel south to visit his temple at Luxor. The most monumental aspects of both temples were the work of the Nineteenth Dynasty pharaoh Ramses II (1279–1213 bce), whose 66-year rule was longer than that of all but one other Egyptian king. It was he who, with his father, was responsible for decorating the enormous hypostyle hall at Karnak, and it was he who built the massive pylon gate at Luxor (Fig. 3.20).

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Ramses’s Pylon Gate at Luxor In front of the pylon stand two enormous statues of the king and, originally, a pair of obelisks—square, tapered stone columns topped by a pyra- mid shape—although only the eastern one remains in place; the other is in the Place de la Concorde in Paris (see Fig. 2.22 in Chapter 2). The outside of the pylon was decorated with reliefs and texts describing the king’s victory over the Hittites, at a battle fought on the river separating present- day Syria and Lebanon. The battle was not the unqualified military success depicted by the reliefs, so these may be an early example of art used as propaganda, a theme that con- tinues up to the present. It may be better to think of these reliefs as symbolic rather than historical, as images of the

king restoring order to the land. Inside the pylon, around the walls of the courtyard, were complex reliefs depicting the king, in the company of deities, together with his chief wife, 17 of his sons, and some of the nearly 100 other royal children whom he fathered with eight other official wives.

Such complexity typifies New Kingdom decoration. We see it clearly in the many surviving wall paintings in the rock-cut tombs across the river from Thebes. Earlier, we discussed the variety of fish and bird life in the painting of Nebamun Hunting Birds (see Fig. 3.2). In a feast scene from the same tomb, the guests receive food from a servant in the top register, while below them, musicians and danc- ers entertain the group (Fig. 3.21). Very little is known

Materials & Techniques Mummification

In the belief that the physical body was essential to the ka’s survival in the afterlife, the Egyptians developed a sophisticated process to preserve the body, mummification. This was a multistaged, highly ritualized process.

The oldest evidence of mummification was found near Saqqara and dates from 3100 to 2890 bce. Mummification methods changed over time, and the techniques used between 1085 and 945 bce were the most elaborate. Upon death, the body was carried across to the west bank of the Nile, symbolically “going into the west” like the setting sun. There it was taken to “the place of purification,” where it was washed with natron. (Natron is a hydrated form of sodium carbonate used to absorb the body’s fluids; it also turned the body black.) After this first step in its symbolic rebirth, the body was transferred to the House of Beauty, where it was prop- erly embalmed, its inner organs removed, dried, coated in resin, and either preserved in their own special containers, now called canopic jars, or wrapped in linen and put back inside the body. The body itself was stuffed with linen and other materials in order to maintain its shape and was surrounded by bags of natron for 40 days. The entire process was overseen by an Overseer of Mys- teries, God’s Seal-Bearer, who served as chief surgeon, and a lector priest who recited the required texts and incantations.

After 40 days, the body was cleaned with spices and perfumes, rubbed with oils to restore some of its suppleness, and then coated with resin to waterproof it. Its nails were sewn back on and artifi- cial eyes put into its eye sockets. Cosmetics were applied to the face and a wig put on its head. Dressed and decked out in jewels, the body was, finally, wrapped in a shroud of bandages from head to foot, along with small figurines and amulets as protection on the journey through the underworld. Finally, a mask was placed on the head and shoulders. The wrapping process involved several stages: First the head and neck were wrapped, then fingers and toes indi- vidually, and the same for the arms and legs, which were then tied together. The embalmers also placed a papyrus scroll with spells from the Book of the Dead (see pages 90–91) between the wrapped hands (a). After several more layers of wrapping impregnated with

liquid resin to glue the bandages together, the embalmers painted a picture of the god Osiris on the wrapping surface, did a final band- aging of the entire mummy with a large cloth attached by strips of linen (b), and then placed a board of painted wood on top. The mummy was now ready for its final ritual burial. The entire process took 70 days!

Two stages in the wrapping of a mummy. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

a b

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about how Egyptian music actually sounded. Evidently, hymns were chanted at religious festivals, and song was a popular part of daily life. As in Mesopotamia, musical instruments—flutes, harps, lyres, trumpets, and metal rat- tles called sistrums—were often found in Egyptian tombs. In this wall painting, the two nude dancers are posed in a com- plex intertwining of limbs. Furthermore, of the four seated figures on the left—one of whom plays a double flute while the others appear to be clapping and, perhaps, chanting— two are depicted frontally, a rarity in Egyptian art. The soles of the womens’ feet are turned toward us, and they are depicted wearing cones of a scented fatty substance on their heads, which when melted would bathe the women in its perfume. It is believed to be unlikely that they really wore such cones and that the cones are instead a visual metaphor for their scent. In this luxurious atmosphere, a new infor- mality seems to have introduced itself into Egyptian art.

Akhenaten and the Politics of Religion Toward the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Egypt experi- enced one of the few real crises of its entire history when, in 1353 bce, Amenhotep IV (r. 1353–1337 bce) assumed the throne of his father Amenhotep III (r. 1391–1353 bce). It was

the father who had originally begun construction of the greater (southern) part of the Temple of Amun-Mut-Khonsu at Luxor and who built the third and tenth pylons at the Temple of Amun at Karnak. The great additions to these temples undertaken by Ramses II some 70 years later may have been a conscious return to the style—and traditions— of Amenhotep III. Certainly, they represent a massive, even overstated rejection of the ways of the son, for Amen- hotep IV had forsaken not only the traditional conventions of Egyptian representation but the very gods themselves.

Although previous Egyptian kings may have associated themselves with a single god whom they represented in human form, Egyptian religion supported a large number of gods. Even the Nile was worshiped as a god. Amenhotep IV abolished the pantheon of Egyptian gods and established a religion in which the sun disk Aten was worshiped exclu- sively. Other gods were still acknowledged, but they were considered to be too inferior to Aten to be worth worship- ing. Whether Amenhotep’s religion was henotheistic—the belief and worship of a single god while accepting that other deities might also exist and be worshiped, as we have seen before, in the Zoroastrian worship of Ahura Mazda in Persia (see Chapter 2)—or truly monotheistic, is a matter of some debate.

Fig. 3.21 Female Musicians and Dancers Entertaining Guests at a Meal, detail of a fresco from the tomb of Nebamun, western Thebes. Dynasty 18, ca. 1360 bce. Paint on plaster, height of fragment 24". © The Trustees of the British Museum. The inclusion of such a scene in a tomb suggests that, in the New Kingdom, the dead demanded not only that they be accompanied by the usual necessities into the afterlife, but that they be entertained there as well.

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READING 3.3

from Akhenaten’s Hymn to the Sun (14th century bce)

Let your holy Light shine from the height of heaven, O living Aten, source of all life!

From eastern horizon risen and streaming, you have flooded the world with your beauty.

You are majestic, awesome, bedazzling, exalted, overlord over all earth,

yet your rays, they touch lightly, compass the lands to the limits of all your creation.

There in the Sun, you reach to the farthest of those you would gather in for your Son,

whom you love; Though you are far, your light is wide upon earth;

and you shine in the faces of all who turn to follow your journeying.

When you sink to rest below western horizon earth lies in darkness like death,

Sleepers are still in bedchambers, heads veiled, eye cannot spy a companion;

All their goods could be stolen away, heads heavy there, and they never knowing!

Lions come out from the deeps of their caves, snakes bite and sting;

Darkness muffles, and earth is silent: he who created all things lies low in his tomb.

Earth-dawning mounts the horizon, glows in the sun-disk as day:

You drive away darkness, offer your arrows of shining, and the Two Lands are lively with morningsong.

Sun’s children awaken and stand, for you, golden light, have upraised the sleepers;

Bathed are their bodies, who dress in clean linen, their arms held high to praise your Return.

Across the face of the earth they go to their crafts and professions.

The herds are at peace in their pastures, trees and the vegetation grow green;

Birds start from their nests, wings wide spread to worship your Person;

Small beasts frisk and gambol, and all who mount into flight or settle to rest

live, once you have shone upon them; Ships float downstream or sail for the south,

each path lies open because of your rising; Fish in the River leap in your sight,

and your rays strike deep in the Great Green Sea. It is you create the new creature in Woman,

shape the life-giving drops into Man, Foster the son in the womb of his mother,

soothe him, ending his tears. …

Aten is clearly the life force and source of all good, the very origin of creation itself.

Amenhotep IV was so dedicated to Aten that he changed his own name to Akhenaten (“The Shining Spirit of Aten”) and moved the capital of Egypt from Thebes to a site many miles north that he named Akhetaten (present- day Tell el-Amarna). This move transformed Egypt’s politi- cal and cultural as well as religious life. At this new capital he presided over the worship of Aten as a divine priest with his queen as a divine priestess. Temples to Aten were open courtyards, where the altar received the sun’s direct rays.

Why would Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten have substi- tuted monotheism for Egypt’s traditional polytheistic reli- gion? Many Egyptologists argue that the switch had to do with enhancing the power of the pharaoh. With the phar- aoh representing the one god who mattered, all religious justification for the power held by a priesthood dedicated to the traditional gods was gone. As we have seen, the pharaoh was traditionally associated with the sun god Re. Now in the form of the sun disk Aten, Re was the supreme deity, embodying the characteristics of all the other gods, therefore rendering them superfluous. By analogy, Amen- hotep IV/Akhenaten was now supreme priest, rendering all other priests superfluous as well. Simultaneously, the tem- ples dedicated to the other gods lost prestige and influence. These changes also converted the priests into dissidents.

A New Art: The Amarna Style Such significant changes had a powerful effect on the visual arts as well. Previously, Egyp- tian art had been remarkably stable because its principles were considered a gift of the gods—thus perfect and eternal. But now, the perfection of the gods was in question, and the principles of art were open to re-examination as well. A new art replaced the traditional canon of proportion—the familiar poses of king and queen—with realism, and a sense of immediacy, even intimacy. So Akhenaten allowed him- self and his family to be portrayed with startling realism, in what has become known, from the modern name for the new capital, as the Amarna style.

An example is a small relief from Akhenaten’s new capi- tal: The king is depicted with a skinny, weak upper body, his belly protruding over his skirt; his skull is elongated behind an extremely long, narrow facial structure; and he sits in a slumped, almost casual position (Fig. 3.22). (One theory holds that Akhenaten had Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder that leads to skeletal abnormalities.) This depiction contrasts sharply with the idealized depictions of the pharaohs in earlier periods. Akhenaten holds one of his children in his arms and seems to have just kissed her. His two other children sit with the queen across from him, one turning to speak with her mother, the other touching the queen’s cheek. The queen herself, Nefertiti, sits only slightly below her husband and appears to share his position and authority. In fact, one of the most striking features of the Amarna style is Nefertiti’s prominence in the decora- tion of the king’s temples. In one, for example, she is shown slaughtering prisoners, an image traditionally reserved for

Amenhotep IV believed the sun was the creator of all life, and he may have composed the Hymn to the Sun, inscribed on the west wall of the tomb of Ay (r. 1327–1323 bce) at Tell el-Amarna and in many other tombs as well (Reading 3.3):

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the king himself. It is likely that her prominence was part of Akhenaten’s attempt to substitute the veneration of his own family (who, after all, represented Aten on earth) for the traditional Amun-Mut-Khonsu family group.

In a house in the southern part of Akhenaten’s new city at Amarna, the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti was discov- ered along with drawings and sculptures of the royal fam- ily (Fig. 3.23). This was the workshop of Thutmose, one of the king’s royal artists. It seems likely that many other sculptures and reliefs were modeled on the bust of Nefertiti. At any rate, the queen’s beauty cannot be denied, and this image of her has become famous worldwide. Even in her own time, she was known by such epitaphs as “Fair of Face” and “Great in Love.”

The Return to Thebes and to Tradition Akhenaten’s revolution was short-lived. Upon his death, Tutankhaten (r. 1336–1327 bce) assumed the throne and changed his name to Tutankhamun (indicating a return to the more traditional gods, in this case Amun). The new king abandoned Tell el-Amarna, moved the royal fam- ily to Memphis in the north, and reaffirmed Thebes as the nation’s religious center. He died shortly after and was bur- ied on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes, near the tomb of Hatshepsut.

Fig. 3.22 Akhenaten and His Family, from Akhetaten (present-day Tell el-Amarna). Dynasty 18, ca. 1345 bce. Painted limestone relief, 123⁄4" × 147⁄8". Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Ägyptisches Museum. Between Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti, the sun disk Aten shines down beneficently. Its rays end in small hands, which hold the ankh symbol for life before both the king and queen.

Fig. 3.23 Nefertiti, from Akhetaten (present-day Tell el-Amarna). Dynasty 18, ca. 1348–1336 bce. Painted limestone, 19". Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Ägyptisches Museum. Some scholars theorize that Nefertiti’s long neck may not be so much her own as a reflection of the king’s—so that the reality of the king takes precedence over her own.

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The Tomb of Tutankhamun Tutankhamun’s is the only royal tomb in Egypt to have escaped the total pillaging of looters. In addition to the royal sarcophagus discovered by Carter (see Fig. 3.1), there were also vast quantities of beautiful furniture in the tomb, including a golden throne that dates from early in the king’s rule and still bears the indelible stamp of the Amarna style, with Aten shining down on both the king and queen (Fig. 3.24). Jewelry of exquisite quality abounded, as did textiles—rarest of all archeological finds because they deteriorate over time. Carter and his team also found a golden canopic chest—which held the king’s embalmed internal organs—a shrine-shaped box of alabaster, carved with four compartments, each of which had a carved and gilded stopper depicting the king. It had an alabaster

lid that covered the stoppers, and it was set in a larger shrine of gilded wood, protected by three gilded statues of god- desses, and covered by a shroud covered with gold rosettes.

The Final Judgment The elaborate burial process was not meant solely to guarantee survival of the king’s ka and ba. It also prepared him for a “last judgment,” a belief system that would find expression in the Hebrew faith as well. In this two-part ritual, deities first questioned the deceased about their behavior in life. Then their hearts, the seat of the ka, were weighed against an ostrich feather, symbol of Maat, the goddess of truth, justice, and order. Egyptians believed the heart contained all the emotions, intellect, and charac- ter of the individual, and so represented both the good and bad aspects of a person’s life. If the heart did not balance with the feather, then the dead person was condemned to nonexistence, to be eaten by a creature called Ammit, the vile “Eater of the Dead,” part crocodile, part lion, and part hippopotamus. Osiris, wrapped in his mummy robes, oversaw this moment of judgment. Tutankhamun himself, depicted on his sarcophagus with his crossed arms holding crook and flail, was clearly identified with Osiris.

Books of Going Forth by Day At the time of Tutankha- mun’s death, the last judgment was routinely illustrated in Books of Going Forth by Day (now also called Books of the Dead), collections of magical texts or spells buried with the deceased to help them survive the ritual of judgment. One such magical text was the “Negative Confession” (Reading 3.4), which the deceased would utter upon entering the judgment hall:

Fig. 3.24 Back of Tutankhamun’s “Golden Throne,” from his tomb, Valley of the Kings, western Thebes. Dynasty 18, ca. 1335 bce. Wood, gold, faience, and semiprecious stones, height of entire throne 41", height of detail approx. 121⁄4". Egyptian Museum, Cairo. This throne shows that early in his life, at least, Tutankhamun was still portrayed in the Amarna style.

READING 3.4

from a Book of Going Forth by Day

I have come unto you; I have committed no faults; I have not sinned; I have done no evil; I have accused no man falsely; therefore let nothing be done against me. I live in right and truth, and I feed my heart upon right and truth. That which men have bidden I have done, and the gods are satisfied thereat. I have pacified the god, for I have done his will. I have given bread unto the hungry and water unto those who thirst, clothing unto the naked, and a boat unto the shipwrecked mariner. I have made holy offerings unto the gods; and I have given meals of the tomb to the sainted dead. O, then, deliver ye me, and protect me; accuse me not before the great god. I am pure of mouth, and I am pure of hands …

I offer up prayers in the presence of the gods, knowing that which concerneth them. I have come forward to make a declaration of right and truth, and to place the balance upon its supports within the groves of amaranth. Hail, thou who art exalted upon thy resting place, thou lord of the atef crown,1 who declarest thy name as the lord of the winds,

1 A conical headdress decorated with two ostrich feathers, joined with ram’s horns and a sun disk, and associated particularly with Osiris.

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The following moment of judgment is depicted in one such Book of Going Forth by Day, a papyrus scroll created for an otherwise anonymous man known as Hunefer (Fig. 3.25). The scene reads from left to right in a continuous pictorial narrative. To the left, Anubis, overseer of funerals and cem- eteries, brings Hunefer into the judgment area. Hunefer’s heart, represented as a pot, is being weighed against the ostrich feather. In this image, Hunefer passes the test—not surprising, given that the work is dedicated to ensuring that Hunefer’s ka survive, in the afterlife. Horus brings Hunefer to Osiris, seated under a canopy, with Isis and her sister Nephthys behind.

THE LATE PERIOD, THE KUSHITES, AND THE FALL OF EGYPT

What was the nature of Egypt’s relations with its African neighbors to the south and with the Mediterranean powers to the north?

From Tutankhamun’s time through the Late Period (715– 332 bce) and until the fall of Egypt to the Romans in 30 bce, the conventions of traditional representation remained in place. For example, the pose we saw in Menkaure’s funer- ary sculpture of 2460 bce (see Fig. 3.10) is repeated in the seventh-century bce statue of Mentuemhet, the governor

Fig. 3.25 Last Judgment of Hunefer by Osiris, from a Book of Going Forth by Day in his tomb at Thebes. Dynasty 19, ca. 1285 bce. Painted papyrus scroll, height 155⁄8". © The Trustees of the British Museum. At the top, Hunefer, having passed into eternity, is shown adoring a row of deities.

Fig.3.26 Mentuemhet, from Karnak, Thebes. Dynasty 25, ca. 660 bce. Granite, height 54". Egyptian Museum, Cairo. The only concession to naturalistic representation in this sculpture is in the governor’s facial features.

deliver thou me from thine angels of destruction, who make dire deeds to happen and calamities to arise, and who have no covering upon their faces, because I have done right and truth, O thou Lord of right and truth. I am pure, in my fore-parts have I been made clean, and in my hinder parts have I been purified; my reins [kidneys] have been bathed in the Pool of right and truth, and no member of my body was wanting. I have been purified in the pool of the south …

(Fig. 3.26). Mentuemhet strides forward into eternal life, nearly 2,000 years after that Old Kingdom pharaoh, a strong visual signal of the stability of Egyptian culture.

Mentuemhet was probably the most influential official of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (ca. 715–656 bce). He was appointed governor of Thebes by the Kushites (from Kush, the Egyptian name for the southern region of Nubia, in today’s Sudan). Nubia had long been an important neigh- bor, appearing in Egyptian records as far back as the Old Kingdom. Nubia served as a corridor for trade between Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa and was the main means by which Egypt procured gold and incense, as well as ivory, ebony, and other valuable items (Fig. 3.27). Because of its links with tropical Africa, over time, the population of Nubia became a diverse mixture of ethnicities.

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Nubia had been the location of several wealthy urban centers, including Kerma, whose walls, mud-brick build- ings, and lavish tombs were financed and built by indigenous Nubian rulers around 1650 bce. Napata was built during an Egyptian annexation of the area in approximately 1500 bce, during the reign of Thutmose I. Napata became the provin- cial capital of Kush.

The Kushites The Kushites had an immense appetite for assimilating Egyptian culture. They adopted Egyptian religion and prac- tices, worshiping Egyptian gods, particularly Amun, the Egyptian state god. The main religious center of Kush was at Jebel Barkal, a mountain near the fourth cataract of the Nile where the Kushites believed Amun dwelled. Their adoption of Egyptian ways nevertheless retained their dis- tinctly Nubian identity. The Kushites developed hiero- glyphs to express their own language, continued to worship many of their own gods, and though they also began to erect pyramids over their royal tombs, theirs started from smaller bases and were distinctly steeper and more needle- like than their Egyptian counterparts. There are nearly 300 of these pyramids in present-day Sudan, more than in Egypt itself. Although annexed to Egypt, Kush was essentially an independent state toward the end of the New Kingdom. Egypt relied upon Kush to supply gold and other resources (including Nubian soldiers, among the most feared warriors in the region), but as Egypt struggled with its own enemies to the east, the rulers of Kush eventually found themselves in a position to take control of Egypt themselves. In the eighth century bce, the Egyptians turned to Kush for the leadership they needed to help hold off the mounting threat of an Assyrian invasion, and the Egyptianized African rulers

of Kush became the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of pharaohs. As pharaohs, the Kushite kings ruled an empire that stretched from the borders of Palestine possibly as far upstream as the Blue and White Niles, uniting the Nile Valley from Khar- toum to the Mediterranean. They were expelled from Egypt by the Assyrians after a rule of close to 100 years.

Egypt Loses Its Independence The Assyrians left rule of Egypt to a family of local princes at Saïs, in the western portion of the Nile Delta, inaugurat- ing the Twenty-sixth, or Saite, Dynasty (664–525 bce). With Memphis as their administrative center, they emphasized Mediterranean trade, which in turn produced over 100 years of economic prosperity. But Egypt was anything but secure in power struggles that dominated the larger political climate of the region. In 525 bce, the Persians invaded from the north, satisfying their own imperial ambitions, capturing the Egyp- tian treasury, and reducing the country to a mere province in the Persian Empire. For the next 200 years, Egypt enjoyed brief periods of independence, until the Persians invaded again in 343 bce. They had ruled for not much more than a decade when the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great drove them out and asserted his own authority. Accord- ing to legend, the god Amun spoke to Alexander through an oracle, acknowledging him as his son and therefore legitimate ruler of Egypt. Its independence as a state had come to an end. When Alexander died, the country fell to the rule of one of his generals, Ptolemy, and beginning in 304 bce, the final Ptolemaic Dynasty was under way. A kingdom in the Greek constellation, Egypt would finally fall to an invading Roman army in 30 bce. But remarkably, until this moment, its artistic and religious traditions, as well as its daily customs, remained largely in place, practiced as they had been for 3,000 years.

Fig. 3.27 Nubians Bringing Tribute, from the tomb of Amenhotep Huy, the Nubian viceroy under Tutankhamun, Qurnet Murai, western Thebes. Dynasty 18, ca. 1330 bce. Painting on plaster. Editions Gallimard, Paris. This painting represents the kind of goods that Egypt might have traded with Nubia and Kush.

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by 1500 bce, have discovered Egyptian scarabs at the site, including one bearing the name of Queen Tiy, mother of Akhenaten. Scarabs are amulets in the shape of a beetle, and since the Egyptian word for beetle, kheprer, is derived from the word kheper, “to come into being,” scarabs were associated with rebirth in the afterlife. Those displaying names were generally used as official seals. A shipwreck dis-

covered off the coast of southern Turkey in 1982 gives us some sense of the extent of Mediter- ranean trade (Fig. 3.29). Car- bon dating of firewood found on board suggests the ship sank in about 1316 bce. Its cargo included gold f rom Egypt , weapons from Greece, a scarab bearing Nefertiti’s name, amber from northern Europe, hippo- potamus and elephant ivory, and tin from Afghanistan. Such trade resulted not only in the transfer of goods between various regions, but in a broader cultural diffusion as well, for ideas, styles, religions, and technologies spread from one culture to another throughout the region. Much work remains to be done on the interconnec- tions and lines of continuity and change among the peoples of the Aegean, the broader Mediterra- nean, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, but it is clear that they knew of one another, traded with one another, and were stimulated by one another’s presence. ■

Although Egyptian art and culture remained extraordi-narily stable for over 3,000 years, it would be a mis-take to assume that this was because the region was isolated. In fact, Egypt was a center of trade for the entire Mediterranean basin. Spiral and geometric designs on Egyp- tian pottery from as early as the Twelfth Dynasty (1980– 1801 bce) suggest the influence of Aegean civilizations, and during the reign of Hatshepsut’s young son, Thutmose III, connec- tions with Aegean cultures appear to have been extremely close. Evi- dence from surviving images of both cultures’ ship designs—ships that would have facilitated Aegean trade—suggests a mutual influ- ence. A small-scale model of the king’s boat from the tomb of King Tutankhamun shows a stern cabin, decorated with images of the king, where the steersmen would have guided the boat (Fig. 3.28). Ships such as this were equipped with a mast that could be raised and fitted with a sail to catch the Nile winds from astern.

Egypt’s influence in the Medi- terranean was far-flung, although it is unlikely that its ships set out to sea. Rather, their boats would have generally hugged the coast. But Egypt was a port of call, and traders from around the Mediter- ranean visited there. Archeologists excavating at Mycenae, a center of culture that was firmly estab- lished on the Greek Peloponnese

Fig. 3.28 Model of the King’s Boat, from the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun, Egypt. Dynasty 18, ca. 1335 bce. Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

Fig. 3.29 A replica of the Bronze Age wreck found in the Mediterranean at Uluburun, off the coast of Turkey.

& CONTINU ITY CHANGE Mutual Influence through Trade

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THINKING BACK

3.1 Describe how the idea of cyclical return shaped Egyptian civilization.

The annual cycle of flood and sun, the inundation of the Nile River Valley that annually deposited deep layers of silt, followed by months of sun in which crops could grow in the fertile soil, helped to define Egyptian culture. This predictable cycle helped to create a cultural belief in the stability and balance of all things that lasted for over 3,000 years. Can you describe this belief in terms of cycli- cal harmony? How does the Egyptian religion reflect this belief system?

3.2 Analyze how religious beliefs are reflected in the funerary art and architecture of the Old Kingdom.

Most surviving Egyptian art and architecture was devoted to burial and the afterlife, the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The pyramids at Saqqara and Giza and the statu- ary of kings and queens were especially dedicated to this cycle. What particular aspect of Egyptian spiritual life do they embody? How do sculptures of lesser figures serve the same ends?

3.3 Compare and contrast Middle Kingdom art and literature to those of the Old Kingdom.

Whereas in the Old Kingdom, writing had been used almost exclusively in a religious context, in the Middle Kingdom a vast secular literature developed. What does the rise of this secular literature tell us about Egyptian society? Except for slight modification of the pose of seated kings in funerary statues, sculpture remained firmly rooted in tradition. Still, Middle Kingdom artists seem to have conceived of a new way of organizing their composi- tions. Describe this new grid system.

3.4 Characterize New Kingdom worship of Amun and contrast it with the major transformation of Egyptian tradition under the rule of Akhenaten.

The New Kingdom kings, now called “pharaoh,” under- took massive, elaborately decorated building projects at Karnak and Thebes. Toward the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Amenhotep IV forsook traditional conven- tions of Egyptian representation, abolished the pantheon of Egyptian gods, established a monotheistic religion in which the sun disk Aten was worshiped exclusively, and changed his own name to Akhenaten. How does Amen- hotep IV’s religion differ from Egyptian religion in gen- eral? What other changes to Egyptian tradition occurred during his reign?

Funeral practices soon included the incantation of texts and spells collected in Books of Going Forth by Day, which accompanied the deceased as they underwent a last judgment. What significance do you attach to the title of these books?

3.5 Discuss Egypt’s relations with its African neighbors to the south and with the Mediterranean powers to the north during the Late Period.

After the end of the New Kingdom, traditional represen- tational practices remained in place, even when Kush- ite kings from the south in present-day Sudan ruled the country. How did the Nubians and Kushites contrib- ute to Egyptian culture? How did the political climate of the Mediterranean basin affect the country? After Egypt fell to Alexander the Great in 332 bce, its inde- pendence as a state came to an end, even though the new Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty continued traditional Egyptian ways until Rome conquered the country in 30 bce.

94 PART ONE The Ancient World and the Classical Past

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READINGS READING 3.2 The Teachings of Khety (ca. 2040–1648 bce)

In the following example of instructive literature, dating from the Middle Kingdom, a royal scribe tries to convince his son to follow him into the profession by debunking virtually every other career path the young man might choose to follow. The work is as instructive as it is amusing, since it presents a wonderfully complete picture of daily life in the Middle Kingdom.

The beginning of the teaching which the man of Tjel named Khety made for his son named Pepy, while he sailed south- wards to the Residence to place him in the school of writings among the children of the magistrates, the most eminent men of the Residence.

So he spoke to him: Since I have seen those who have been beaten, it is to writings that you must set your mind. Observe the man who has been carried off to a work force. Behold, there is nothing that surpasses writings! They are a boat upon the water. Read then at the end of the Book of Kemyet this statement in it saying:

As for a scribe in any office in the Residence, he will not suffer want in it. When he fulfills the bidding of another, he does not come forth satisfied. I do not see an office to be com- pared with it, to which this maxim could relate. I shall make you love books more than your mother, and I shall place their excellence before you. It is greater than any office. There is nothing like it on earth. When he began to become sturdy but was still a child, he was greeted (respectfully). When he was sent to carry out a task, before he returned he was dressed in adult garments.

I do not see a stoneworker on an important errand or a goldsmith in a place to which he has been sent, but I have seen a coppersmith at his work at the door of his furnace. His fingers were like the claws of the crocodile, and he stank more than fish excrement.

Every carpenter who bears the adze is wearier than a field- hand. His field is his wood, his hoe is the axe. There is no end to his work, and he must labor excessively in his activity. At nighttime he still must light his lamp. …

The barber shaves until the end of the evening. But he must be up early, crying out, his bowl upon his arm. He takes himself from street to street to seek out someone to shave. He wears out his arms to fill his belly, like bees who eat (only) according to their work.

The reed-cutter goes downstream to the Delta to fetch him- self arrows. He must work excessively in his activity. When the gnats sting him and the sand fleas bite him as well, then he is judged.

The potter is covered with earth, although his lifetime is still among the living. He burrows in the field more than swine to bake his cooking vessels. His clothes being stiff with mud, his head cloth consists only of rags, so that the air which comes

forth from his burning furnace enters his nose. He operates a pestle with his feet with which he himself is pounded, pen- etrating the courtyard of every house and driving earth into every open place.

I shall also describe to you the bricklayer. His kidneys are painful. When he must be outside in the wind, he lays bricks without a garment. His belt is a cord for his back, a string for his buttocks. His strength has vanished through fatigue and stiffness, kneading all his excrement. He eats bread with his fingers, although he washes himself but once a day. …

The weaver inside the weaving house is more wretched than a woman. His knees are drawn up against his belly. He cannot breathe the air. If he wastes a single day without weav- ing, he is beaten with 50 whip lashes. He has to give food to the doorkeeper to allow him to come out to the daylight …

See, there is no office free from supervisors, except the scribe’s. He is the supervisor!

But if you understand writings, then it will be better for you than the professions which I have set before you. … What I have done in journeying southward to the Residence is what I have done through love of you. A day at school is advanta- geous to you. …

Be serious, and great as to your worth. Do not speak secret matters. For he who hides his innermost thoughts is one who makes a shield for himself. Do not utter thoughtless words when you sit down with an angry man.

When you come forth from school after midday recess has been announced to you, go into the courtyard and discuss the last part of your lesson book.

When an official sends you as a messenger, then say what he said. Neither take away nor add to it. …

See, I have placed you on the path of God. … See, there is no scribe lacking sustenance, (or) the provisions of the royal house. … Honour your father and mother who have placed you on the path of the living.

READING CRITICALLY

Although the scribe Khety spends much time describing the shortcomings of other lines of work, he also reminds his son how he should behave at school. What do the father’s words of advice tell us about the values of Egyptian society?

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